Re: Football Manager Well, fellow Coloradoan. I'm from Aurora-ish. Unincorporated Arapahoe County to be specific. Is the Denver on your profile actually Denver, or "Denver" in that sense of what I tell tourists when they ask where I am from? Football is massively macho. Although David Beckham's "fashion sense" (ugh) and the recent half-naked Calvin Klein shots of Freddie Ljunberg (not that I'm complaining . . ) make it a wee bit harder to defend my stance on the whole macho issue. Especially against my rugby-playing-Air-Force-Cadet-friend. I have to mention the whole "watching dots move" thing. It totally threw me off at first. Especially since I didn't know what they hell colour Sunderland was supposed to be. I just sat through the first game going, "maybe if I leave the room the game will end by the time I get back . . . and Sunderland will manage a win".
Re: Football Manager From my Denver Highlands bungalow this morning Liverpool couldn't manage to win any hardware. I lost in the UEFA Cup semi's to Chelski. I lost in the FA Cup semi's to Birmingham. The Premier League came down to the final day. Chelsea had 72 points and I had 71. I had Sunderland at home and Chelsea had Birmingham at home. A Chelsea loss or draw would open the door to my championship. However it was not to be, Sunderland was fighting to stay up and tied me late in the match and Chelsea won 3-0 against a Birmingham side compfortably in the middle of the table with nothing to fight for. So I start another off season. I'm coming up on the 09/10 season. This summer I have to finish South American WC Qualification with Argentina. I'm safely in the number two position behind Brasil. I can't wait for the 2010 WC next summer. I want to bring the cup back to Argentina and I think I can with a squad based around English player of the year Pablo Amir, Spanish striker of the year Saviola and solid goal keeper Leo Franco. I've been winning my qualification games 3-0, 4-0, 2-0. Argentina is feeling compfortable. This off season at Liverpool I don't have a lot of changes to make. I am going to look for a young up and coming defender to use as a sub and develop for the future. I'm also going to look for a similar attacking midfielder. The formation I use is an attacking 4-2-3-1 so I am very deep at striker with Owen, Cisse and Spanish wonderkid Fernandez. At attacking mid I have a lot of talent but they tired out towards the end of the season and a couple of small injuries left me a little exposed. My regular starters include Xisco, Donovan and Thompson. Halbi comes in for Donovan. Luis Garcia can be used in any of the attacking midfield roles. I need one more super sub to keep things tight up top. On the defensive side of midfield I'm using Parker and Gerard. Parker has an amazing long shot and scored some wicked goals this season. I also have Blasi to play in there. A young defensive midfielder wouldn't hurt I suppose. On defense I have Riise, and three others I can never remember. In goal Paul Robinson was very solid, giving me the best goals against in the Premier League at 30. Next season I should be able to lift the Premier League title. This season I had a lot of draws, 12. I need to convert those to wins and things will be easy. I'm looking forward to the challenge. I'll also be back in the Champions League after a year off since I left Barca. I'm looking forward to the cash windfall that provides. Xisco was my best purchase at Liverpool. He came from Mallorca at the January transfer window for $22,000,000 and was worth every penny. In the second half of the season he averaged 8.45 earning MOM honors 5 times. I also bought a German right full back in January who performed very well, averaging 8.00 in the second half of the season.
Re: Football Manager I hope Tevez is in the Argentina fold. Kid has been amazing, albeit injured at the moment, for me in his first year with Chelsea.
Re: Football Manager He is although his play on the national team has not been top notch. He is more of a role player for me at this point.
Re: Football Manager You should try rugby. Talked to a friend yesterday. An Irish guy who played semi-professional rugby in New Zealand one year. He swore up & down that one of his teammates trained by running up hills while holding a (small) sheep under each arm. He also said that he once punched this teammate in the chest hard, with a closed fist, and got no reaction except for a sore fist. And my friend is about 6' tall, strongly built, a thick neck, the usual rugby build. I said, "I gather that those guys were tougher than Irish soccer players?" He laughed. He said, "I thought Irishmen were tough until I went to New Zealand. Roy Keane would crap his pants." OK, digression over.
Re: Football Manager It's all good, you did rep me and I challenged myself to proove my competence, so good came out of it And yep, it's fantastic winning on your own! I think that's the only thing we'll be agreeing about in the next 24 hours, you being an Arse fan and all .
Re: Football Manager The best advice in FM is to win on your own. It's absolutely NO fun winning things with someone elses advice on players, tactics, training, etc. I am coaching my 4th team in this current game of FM and I FINALLY have a winning team. I never deviate from my standard tactics, I just needed to find players that responded to my French style of play!
Re: Football Manager Each time I play the game I sign Vanden Borre and Kallstrom. I splash out for Schweinsteiger too whenever the kitty allows it. Eventually each club I manage ends up looking like the last! And whenever I start the game, Everton sign Dagoberto and Liverpool sign Van der Meyde.
Re: Football Manager Does anyone else have some strange habit or superstition that's developed over the hours-upon-hours that they dedicate to this game? I always put the mouse pointer in the half of the pitch that my team is attacking. Call me crazy, but it makes me more comfortable to watch the big games.
Re: Football Manager I don't do anything weird with the mouse. But, I don't start players who just joined the team. I believe in that 'hidden gel' factor. As well as Seniority. I also realize that I'm overstocked in the striker position. Eto'o, Maxi Lopez, Alejandro Fernandez, Pazzini, and David Villa. My midfield is also stocked, Ronnie, D'Alessandro, Van Bommel, Xabi Alonso, and of course, Deco, Xavi, and Mascherano. I'm selling Belleti, Larsson, and have already sold Giuly. I think player-to-player interaction and relationships still must be improved. If I look up Rio and Anton Ferdinand, Vincent and Francois Kompany, and of course the Nevilles, they should be on the Favourite Personnel list. And when I sign them to my club, I don't want any weird happiness results, they should generally train together; and unsettlement issues shouldn't be an issue for one and not the other. They should live together until the right age. Enough ranting from me.
Re: Football Manager Typical FM moment yesterday...I am managing Portadown in the Northern Irish league, and clinch the championship with two matches to go. So before the next match...I get a media comment from the opposing manager saying that he doesn't think I can win the league this year! Then half my team gets the "unsure if team can win the title following opposing manager's comments" attribute, and their morale and play tanks. Good thing I had already clinched the league
Re: Football Manager Similar thing happened to me recently. Playing as Southampton, United were interested in Vanden Borre and offered 12m (an offer I couldn't refuse!). I agreed, he agreed, and I finalised the deal the morning of a match day. By kick-off time, he was still there, so I figured "What the heck? One for the road". He had a cracker, and in the news later that day, in addition to a confirmation that United had signed him, there was a question from the media saying he has been labled as one of the most promising youngsters of his generation and asking whether I thought I could keep him. I said no, and the game crashed! Luckily I had saved two days before the match, so nothing much was lost. Events happened similarly, but the press didn't ask the question this time
Re: Football Manager The only superstition I have is to not press my team tactics button while the opposing team has the ball. It seems they often score when I do that.
Re: Football Manager You had better believe in it since it is in there. I think its a bit too strong right now. If you leave a team of pretty good players together with minimal changes due to tired, injured or suspended players you can go on some insane (150+) unbeaten streaks. I'm hoping they seriously tweak the team gel factor and player's stamina. It is very tough to get a player to play in nearly every match unless its a GK in FM05. Of course, in real life we can all name a bunch of players that manage it without showing to much fatigue on the field.
Re: Football Manager This killed me last year in the league with Bolton. After finishing 3rd the year before I added several players that should have strengthened the team quite a bit. However, I tanked for the first half of the season, and ended up finishing 12th. Interestingly enough, I won the champions league. This year I'm doing it a bit differently. I have one new signing, one big guy gone (for 29.5 mil after picking him up on a free a year ago), and I'm trying to sign a big name or two. If I do, they won't go straight into the team. I also took control over most of the friendlies -- it seems like the assman just throws people in there willie-nillie, so I played my first 11 together for increasingly long periods of time as we progressed through the friendlies. I'm about the start the league, so we'll see how it goes.
Re: Football Manager Wow, just started a new game with Ivory Coast and I am doing pretty well. Just had a home game against Sudan. I won 10-0. It was 7-0 at half time. Three players with 2 goals and four with 1. Surprisingly, Drogba didnt score! Six players got a rating of 10. Three with 9. Shots= 29:0 This was with my own tactic. I am playing a 2-3-2-1-2.
Re: Football Manager That sounds like a great plan. At clubs with any money (poor clubs require a really different approach), I tend to make a fair amount of moves early in the first summer, pick a top group, and stick with them unless somebody gets a long term injury or if they just aren't working well after a fair amount of games. I then only bring in a player or two in the first winter window (usually a free who was out of contract at the end of December and I pre-signed earlier) and only insert the new guy(s) slowly into the side as players get tired, injured, or banned. Then each following window is more about small tweaks and not massive movement for the first team especially as my kids develop into starters. After a few seasons, my overall team is pretty big but it is well divided across ages, skill level, and squads so it isn't a real problem. I run into a lot of new FM players (usually they pick a huge rich squad like Chelsea or R.Madrid) who get a bunch of players in and out of their first team all the time and they can't figure out why their team of stars isn't winning. Then I ask how many players they have in the first team and they say, "only 50-60" and they end up giving each of their "stars" about 10 games a season. They tend to get sacked, don't win anything major, and have a bunch of unhappy players.
Re: Football Manager I tend to have a somewhat similar problem with unhappy players, except that it works a bit differently. I start with lower clubs, then as I improve them their finances improve and you can buy better players, so the guys who were solid first teamers are now squad players, the squad players are on the outs, and your up and comers think they should be in the first team RIGHT NOW, while your stars all want to move to a bigger club (I had guys wanting to do that when I won the CL). So everybody's unhappy. And I never seem to be able to unload anybody -- guys who would be great at the next lower level are rejected because everybody "thinks they could not attract a player of his quality to their club".
Re: Football Manager Most players see something like your pattern if they go through promotions or even significantly increase the performance of the club. A lot of your problems are related to the game's messed up method of setting rep (clubs/you/players/leagues), changing rep to reflect performance, adjusting player's desires to fit their rep and the club's performance/standing/league, making young stars take a realistic demands(they all want to be treated like galacticos from the start), and general problems with the transfers and loans module (this is related to the rep problem). So a bunch of stuff that could be improved. I'm just crossing my fingers in the hope that FM06 sorts out 1 or 2 of these.
Re: Football Manager I was reading something over on the SI boards that suggested that there would be more ways to communicate with your team in FM2006 -- some kind of "halftime talk", and hopefully a way to sit down with an individual player to clarify his place in the team. I'd love a way to say to somebody, "You're my backup keeper, and an important piece of the squad", or "Be patient, your time will come", or "Sorry, I've done my best to move you, but nobody is biting". Performance-related communication would be great, too -- like "Look, buddy, you need to pick it up", or "I know you want to start, but every time I bring you in late you're performing an important role", etc. That's the biggest change I'd like. Obviously you can't make the match engine accommodate every single thing you might like to say to a player, but I'd think you could set up libraries of options relating to various situations, and program those to have effects that interact with the player's temperament, age, position in the team, etc.
Re: Football Manager On the site it looks like you'll just be able to say things like "dissapointed", "pleased" etc during half time to each player, and also to the team in general. So I guess that will be a new factor that affects performance depending on personality (do you picture Lauren Robert upping his game coz Souness told him he's playing sh!te?). It doesn't solve the communications problems you're mentioning, like telling your player that he'll get his rest when the fixtures are right. The training system is apparently getting completely revamped.
Re: Football Manager http://www.sigames.com/news.php?type=view&article_id=1126 I don't know, it sounds like you might get a little more interaction with individual players, too. We can only hope.
Re: Football Manager Yes there will be much more interaction with players and the board. I'd tell you to check out the FM06 screenshots but SI's website is currently messed up so that when you try to go to them it send you to the announcement that their hockey mgmt sim is out today. Once they fix the website, you should check out the screenshots at this link. Looking at them will give you a good feel for what is coming.
Re: Football Manager Wow, FM06 already. I feel like I'm just mastering FM05. Speaking of which. I have Liverpool first in the Premier League after 12 games of the 09/10 season. It is a tight race with Newcastle and Tottenham nipping at my feet. I just beat Spurs 4-1 so that should shut them up. Xisco is a monster on the LAM position in my 4-2-3-1 formation. He is averaging 8.5 and is scoring and assisting on goals constantly. Cisse is also scoring a lot of goal. He had 4 in a recent 8-1 League Cup rout of Colchester, a L1 side.
Re: Football Manager I just looked through most of the FM06 screenshots. The new manager contract and player conversation features look really nice.